


Shadow Warp

by dognamedmeatball



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:53:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27605884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dognamedmeatball/pseuds/dognamedmeatball
Summary: A new meta human appears in Central City at a crucial moment during a bridge collapse and saves a bus load of school children. Team Flash works together to locate and help the oddly evasive teenager who seems to have no connection to the particle accelerator explosion at all.Meanwhile, Nico is lost and confused after shadow traveling between universes for the first time. Hurt from overusing his powers and not knowing who to trust, he's determined to find a way home. But first, he may have to deal with whatever creatures might have followed him to Earth-1 from back home...Set after HOO and Zoom (ish) for both timelines, but expect some canon divergence as I don't really enjoy pacing things adjacent to episodes for the most part.
Comments: 18
Kudos: 86





	1. Chapter 1

There wasn’t enough time.

Barry knew it, and so did Cisco and Caitlin, even though they weren’t saying it. From the moment they had gotten the news blast about the collapse, the bridge was already starting to fracture and break. All the Flash could do was get as many people off in time, but even at his top speed, Barry was nowhere close enough to get them all.

He was streaking through cars, pulling people out of their stopped vehicles two at a time, and zipping them back over to the edge, but he could feel the bridge beginning to tip down, see cars starting to slide away. As fast as he went, things seemed almost stopped in place to him… but he knew they weren’t. Inertia was taking over. 

“Almost there, Barry,” Cisco was saying, just as another support snapped and caught him across the chest.

It was only a momentary setback – he was rolling back to his feet as fast as he’d hit the ground – but it was a huge cost. His gaze flew to the school bus that was starting to plunge off the bridge and into the black water below. Now it was off the bridge entirely, there was nothing he could do to pull out the kids on it. Maybe he could create a wave that would boost the bus temporarily, giving him enough time to get them out before it filled? Barry started to run towards the gap in the bridge himself, toward the darkness of the night that was swallowing the yellow bus up, when suddenly the bus vanished altogether. 

Barry stopped for a second, blinking in confusion. 

“What the hell?” Cisco said on their comms. “Where did it go?”

“Barry, get out of there, the bridge is going to fully collapse any second!” Caitlin shouted, snapping Barry back to the present. He darted off the bridge and onto the street level again, just as the bridge fully fell into the river. Everyone had made it to safety – except for one vehicle.

“Guys, find that bus,” he said. “Where the hell could it possibly have gone? What meta could have taken it?”

“Definitely no one we’ve seen before,” Cisco said. “Could be a new one.”

“Barry, hang on – they’re reporting a bus just appeared three blocks away,” Caitlin burst in. “It looks like the one from the bridge. Corner of Amhurst and fifth,” she added, and Barry went streaking away. 

The bus had been dropped in the middle of an intersection, leading to loads of backed up cars honking angrily. The bus driver was slumped over the wheel. Barry burst onto the bus. Several people were knocked unconscious from the various impacts of the bridge collapse sending vehicles sliding into each other. A few people were banged up and bruised badly. He checked the bus driver’s pulse. He was alive, but must have hit his head on the wheel when the bus fell. “Everybody okay?” he asked, hearing the telltale sirens wailing as ambulances approached – sent in by Cisco, he assumed.   
  
A few teary kids rushed forward to hug Barry’s legs and he put a hand on the head of a particularly distraught ten year old. “It was so scary,” the kid blubbered.  
  
“Can you tell me what happened?” Barry asked.   
  
“We were falling toward the water, and then everything got cold, and dark,” the kid said. “And the wind was so fast – and then we were here!”   
  
“Did you see anyone?” he asked.  
  
The kid shook his head.   
  
“You’re safe now,” Barry told him. “I’m going to see if I can help anyone else.” Gently, he pried himself free from the scared kids, and sped off into the night, wondering what the hell had just happened. 

* * *

Barry burst into the StarLabs hub and propped up against Cisco’s desk. “Any news on the new meta?” he asked. He didn’t want to admit it, but the question of the mystery savior that night had bothered him the last few days. If it wasn’t for the mysterious abilities, those kids wouldn’t have been okay, and that upset him. He needed to get faster. Needed it now. And he owed whoever had helped him that night a huge favor. 

Cisco grinned up at him. “You mean Shadow Warp?” 

“Is that what you’re going with?” Barry couldn’t help but grin back. 

“What’s not to love about it?” Cisco asked. “I’ll revisit it if we find out any other abilities, happy? Anyway, to answer your question,” he added, “yes. The kids from the bus were all taken in and accounted for pretty quickly once the chaos subsided, except for one.” Cisco tapped at his keyboard and gestured to the screens on the wall, where the face of a teenager popped up suddenly. “Knocked unconscious in the attack, no ID, took a day for them to check with the school but he’s not a student there. So, John Doe for now, as facial recognition has got absolutely nothing on him before now.”

Barry studied the boy’s face. He was a grim looking kid, sallow skin and dark circles under his eyes that made him take on a waxy, corpselike pallor. The kid had been banged up badly in the accident as well, and had bruises purpling already on the side of his face. If he wasn’t involved, it was a hell of a coincidence, him being on a school bus at the same time with no identity. “Where is he now?” he asked.

“Still at the hospital,” Cisco said. “He hasn’t woken up yet. Police are posted to take him into custody since as far as they know, he’s a runaway, not a meta.” 

Barry nodded. “I’ll get over there now and see if I can’t secure him.” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nico meets Joe and Barry at the hospital and tries to figure out more about where he is.

Nico woke up in a start. His whole body ached and his head was thumping painfully. The last thing he remembered was pulling the bus out of the darkness… and then falling into a different blackness of his own. Where am I? he wondered, registering slowly the steady beeping coming from beside him. Nico cracked open his eyes painfully and registered white light and a sterile smell of rubbing alcohol. Hospital, he processed, and with a groan started to sit up. Perfect, just what he needed. Well, it wasn’t a problem to get out of here. He just needed to get his things and then he could go via shadow travel. 

His head pounded painfully as swung his legs out of the bed and Nico briefly saw spots as he rose to his feet. Or he could go via elevator, he thought. Shadow traveling a whole bus full of kids had taken a lot out of him. He hadn’t tried to move anything that big since… well, ever. Even just him, Reyna, and a big ass statue had been a tough trip each time he’d made it. He needed to rest, or he was going to fade away before he had any chance of figuring out how to get back him. And because wherever here was didn’t seem to have any gods, he was completely on his own with that puzzle. 

It had been one of the first things he’d realized when he had burst out of the shadow realm following the accident. He hadn’t been able to connect with the Underworld. Normally, he felt it all the time, like a low current buzzing beneath him: the presence of his father, and a world full of souls. Here things were still and quiet in the earth. And when he’d tried to send an IM, the drachma had clattered noisily to the ground instead of getting a response from Iris. 

No backup. No gods. Just him. 

Nico sat back down on the bed heavily when the darkness blurring his vision threatened to send him tumbling to the ground. He might need to just bide his time a bit longer before he could get out of here. How long had he been out? He didn’t have a phone for the usual demigod reasons, and although his watch told him it was almost three PM, he didn’t really have a reference for which day that would be anymore. 

He rearranged the sheets over him. They were scratchy and miserable. Was there television or something? A screen was off in the corner of the room, but he couldn’t see a remote anywhere. The news would probably have the date on it… And maybe some more information about what was going on. Like who that bright blur had been on the bridge when it was collapsing, for example. He checked the night stand. Bingo. Nico flicked on the TV and scrolled channels until a blonde haired news anchor type woman appeared before him. “…no further updates on the cause of yesterdays bridge collapse, but thanks to the Flash’s help, there were no injuries or casualties beyond a few minor bumps,” she was saying. Nico caught a glimpse of the date in the corner of the screen. Three days had passed already that he’d been unconscious. A week since he’d come to this world. Certainly by now Hazel, Jason, and Reyna had already come up with some way to get him back? He could only hope they’d hurry up and show, fast. 

Just then, the door to his hospital room swung open, and two men entered – one a tall, gangly pale young man with a cross body messenger bag and a hoodie on, and the other a bearded dark skinned man who must have been at least thirty years older than his companion. “Good to see you’re awake, son,” the older man said. “I’m Detective Joe West, I’m with the CCPD. This is my colleague, Barry Allen.” Barry Allen waved at him and gave him a tight grin that looked a little nervous. “You got a name?” 

Nico blinked in confusion. Cops were not what he expected. Doctors, yes. Police… probably the worst thing he could have imagined happening now. It would be a lot harder to lay low until he recovered if he was being tracked by the cops. “Why?” he asked instead, stalling. How much did they know? Did they know the bus was him? The mist obviously wasn’t working here, but did that matter if they couldn’t stop him from traveling away? 

“You’re not in any kind of trouble,” Barry told him, pulling a chair up net to the bed. “We just have a few questions about the bridge collapse for you. You were there, weren’t you?” 

“No,” Nico lied immediately. “I was like three blocks away from it. There must be a record of where the ambulance picked me up.” 

“Well, considering that bus was about three blocks from the bridge too, that’s not exactly an airtight alibi,” the detective pointed out with a wry smile. “Like Barry said, nobody’s mad at you. Hell, saving a bus load of middle schoolers kind of puts you in the hero column around here. We just want to help you right back. So, how about a name?” 

Nico hesitated. It was just a first name, and also he wasn’t from this world. It didn’t seem so dangerous. “Nico,” he answered finally. 

“Got a last name, Nico?” Detective Joe asked. 

Nico studied his pale hands. He could see his vein through them now. They were almost green through his waxy wrists. 

“Don’t you think your folks must be worried about you, Nico?” Barry tried when it became apparent Nico wasn’t going to reply to him. “We can get a hold of them, let them know you’re okay.” 

“They’re not worried,” Nico said flatly. He could sense Detective Joe and Barry exchanging glances across him. Hades wouldn’t notice for months. Nico wondered if he would mourn him or just move on silently. 

Barry cleared his throat and changed the subject. “Look, Nico, was that the first time you’ve done that?” 

Seeing no reason to lie now that it was apparent they knew it was him for sure, Nico shrugged. “No,” he said truthfully. “But the first time it was so many people with me.” Was it a risk to tell the truth? Maybe. But they could hardly contain him. A pair of handcuffs were nothing once he had rested a bit. He might as well try to get as much information about this world while he could. It was clear whoever the Flash (which he assumed was the streak of light on the bridge that night) was, there were people with weird abilities all around him. 

“Going into a coma like that is kind of scary, right?” Barry asked. “Why don’t you let us take you to StarLabs? They do a lot of research on metahumans… They might be able to figure out if using your power is hurting you, and do something to stop it. You’re what, eighteen? You’ve got a long life ahead of you. You want to take care of yourself, right?” 

Nico studied his nails again. “Sixteen,” he murmured quietly. He could sense the adults looking at each other with pity in their eyes for him. Clearly on his own, unhealthy, and half dead… Not exactly the ideal 16 year old lifestyle. 

“You live in Central City long?” Detective Joe asked. Clearly the man was still on a mission to find out his family and reunite the apparent runaway. 

Nico shook his head. “I just got here a week ago,” he said. Immediately he could sense their confusion. What answer were they expecting? First calling him a ‘metahuman’ and now this… it seemed clear suddenly that if he didn’t want them to know everything, then he better stop talking while he was ahead. 

They must have noticed him tensing up at their reaction. “Listen, you’re due to be discharged in a few hours,” Detective Joe said. “Why don’t we pick you up and take you for some food on our way to the lab? Your pick.”

“McDonalds,” Nico said immediately, before he could help himself. “Please,” he added. 

Detective Joe broke into a grin. “We can do that, kid,” he agreed easily. 

“Why do you guys know all this stuff about metahumans?” Nico asked, glancing at the two cops. It seemed out of character for a cop to just want to hand him over to a third party, now that he thought about it. “You guys like… special police?”

Detective Joe chuckled. “Kind of like that. I’m the head of the metahuman task force for the city,” he explained. “Barry here’s a CSI who was on the scene at the time of the event, so he’s working with me this case.” 

Nico blinked, trying to consume as much information as possible. “You’re telling me there’s a whole task force?” he asked blearily. He pictured dozens of cops picking over the info they could amass about his life. Not good. He needed to get away from these guys. But first he needed to recuperate. And hey, it wasn’t like any jail cell could hold him. Bars were nothing if he could travel out. And trying to travel right now would probably lead to a pretty bad ending to his short hero’s tale. He slumped back against the pillows and chewed on his thumbnail. Nico wanted to get the hell out. “Okay,” he agreed. “I’ll go to this lab place or whatever.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nico comes to StarLabs. Barry and Cisco discuss some abnormalities.

Barry was watching Nico in the rear view mirror, trying not to let the moody teen notice him looking. The sullen boy was staring out the window with sunken, unreadably black eyes. What was he thinking? Nico’s breath was heavier than the short walk from the hospital door to Joe’s car would have required. Clearly recovery was still ongoing from the big heroics he’d pulled just four days ago now. The power had been jarring to imagine at the time, but the clear toll it took on the user made Barry a little less worried about if he’d be able to take down Nico if the boy ever turned out to be more unstable than he seemed. Not that he wanted to fight Nico. The sadness he seemed to carry on his shoulders, the way he’d replied when Joe asked about his parents… They’re not worried, he’d said, shutting down any notion of Barry’s that they might be able to have an easing happy ending like on TV. The tone hadn’t left room for questions. 

Nico glanced up at him suddenly with narrowed eyes and Barry smiled at him, pretending he had just looked back a moment before. “Go easy on the fries,” he warned him. “It’s been a while since you’ve had solid food.” 

Nico stuffed a handful of the McDonalds fries in his mouth with the same deadpan look on his face and didn’t say anything. 

“Hey, it’s up to you, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. When I woke up from my coma, my first meal made me sicker than a dog,” Barry teased. 

“You were in a coma?” Nico asked through a mouthful of food. 

Barry nodded. “For a few months,” he said. “I was struck by lightning.” 

When Barry usually said that, most people had a few follow up questions. Like, do you have a cool scar? Or, did you have to learn how to walk again? To his surprise, Nico just got a faraway look in his eyes, and leaned back in his seat. “Oh,” he said, and stared out the window again. “That sucks.” 

Joe pulled into the parking lot of Star Labs. “Yes, it did,” he chuckled, killing the engine. “Alright kids, everybody out. Let’s go check in with Caitlin and Cisco.” 

“Who are they?” Nico asked immediately, following right after Joe. “You know them well?” 

“They’re my good friends,” Barry said. “And brilliant scientists. Caitlin – Dr. Snow – is an expert on this type of stuff. She’ll be able to figure out why your abilities make you so weak, and maybe help reverse the effects faster so you won’t be putting your life in danger like that anymore.” 

Nico rolled his eyes, but followed the two of them inside the building. 

Caitlin and Cisco met them in the main lobby of the lab. “You must be Nico,” Caitlin chirped. She introduced herself and Cisco quickly. “We’re the main team here at StarLabs. If you don’t mind a few tests, I think we can help you identify just exactly what’s going on with you.” She led Nico off into one of the glass observation rooms. Barry watched as she began checking his pulse and his breathing. The two were talking – Caitlin, friendly but somewhat clinical while she worked, Nico, constantly hunched over and wide eyed every time she turned around quickly, clearly trying to mask his nerves. 

Cisco folded his arms across his chest and leaned in to Barry as Joe excused himself to take a call. “Gotta say, even after seeing the pictures, the kid’s not exactly what I expected from Shadow Warp,” he whispered. 

“He almost died using his powers to save those kids,” Barry said. “And he’s clearly not sleeping in a warm bed at night. The kid is definitely homeless, probably traumatized in some way. I’m sure having this power doesn’t exactly help, either.” 

“I feel kind of bad for him,” Cisco said. “He’d have been… what, 12 when the particle accelerator exploded? That’s a lot of scary power for a kid to have suddenly, with no one looking out for him.” 

“Maybe,” Barry said. “If it was the particle accelerator.” Cisco shot him a puzzled look. Barry leaned in and lowered his voice. “Alright, at the hospital, he said something about never having been to Central City before a week ago. So it doesn’t add up that it’d be the accelerator. I don’t know for sure, of course… But something is off.” He noticed Nico staring at them before sharply looking away as Caitlin checked his blood pressure. 

A moment later Nico excused himself from the room. “Bathroom?” he asked Barry. As he walked, it didn’t escape Barry’s notice that he was slightly out of breath and was struggling to avoid a limp. His heart twinged a bit for the teen who was so beat up. Poor kid had been through the wringer. 

Barry pointed down the hallway. “I warned you about the fries,” he teased again. 

“Shut up,” muttered Nico, brushing past him with all the annoyance teens were so potent at mustering. 

Once Nico was out of sight – and earshot – Cisco leaned back in. “So, what are you saying? You think he’s not a normal meta?”

Barry nodded. “Be ready for anything with this one,” he warned.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nico investigates StarLabs and gets the wrong idea. He makes a big move. 
> 
> A/N - slightly longer chapter that'll be the last one til Monday-ish, gonna do a big batch of writing over the weekend and post as I edit throughout next week.

Caitlin watched the metahuman wander off in the direction Barry had sent him and chewed on her lip. He was an odd one, alright. He had demanded to know what she was doing at every step, and had eyed every tool from her stethoscope to her blood pressure monitor with a heavy level of suspicion. You’d think he’d never been in a hospital before. Aside from some of the wall mounted displays, it wasn’t exactly a non-standard exam room. And she hadn’t even tried to draw blood yet. She half expected the boy to run for he hills the second he saw a needle. 

She tried to remember the situation Nico was in. Clearly homeless, likely had no adult looking out for him for a long time. It was very possible he hadn’t had a doctor’s appointment in years. She wondered if she had any candy in her desk to appease him with.   
  
Barry and Cisco joined her in the exam room. “How’s it going?” Cisco asked. “Any more metahuman type behavior?” He hopped up on the exam table to take a comfy seat.   
  
She shook her head. “We haven’t really gone through much but basic vitals so far. Elevated pulse and blood pressure, which I would attribute to stress and exhaustion. I also wanted to ask you about what they told you at the hospital.”  
  
“Why?” Barry asked, frowning.   
  
“Well, they gave him stitches for some of his injuries,” she told them. “Did they say anything about how he was found that would indicate why he’d have been so cut up?”  
  
Barry shook his head. “He was on the bus like the other kids. Though, now that I think about it, the worst injury any of them had was a few bruises. What happened that made him get stitches?”   
  
“You tell me.” Caitlin flipped over her notes. “I doubt he’s going to tell us, anyway. I’ll continue with the exam and take some blood samples. We can confirm he’s a meta then and see if we can figure out why using his ability causes so much deterioration of his health. Maybe once he’s a bit calmer, he’ll tell us a little more about what’s going on.” Although privately, Caitlin suspected their clammed up young patient was going to keep his business to himself. She wasn’t sure why he had agreed to come to StarLabs without any intention of talking to them. Maybe the threat of police as the alternative was enough.   
  
“Let me know as soon as you get those blood tests back,” Barry said, and he lowered his voice. “I was just telling Cisco about my hunch. I’m not sure he’s a normal metahuman.” Barry quickly explained what he’d noticed before to her. “We may need to figure out what’s actually going on with him instead if we really want to help him.”   
  
Caitlin raised her eyebrows. Not a normal metahuman, huh? “If he’s not a meta, Barry,” she asked, “what exactly do you think we’re dealing with here?”

* * *

  
Nico locked the bathroom door behind him and exhaled shakily. Gods, walking was still so hard. He had never taken so long to get his strength back. A few days resting had helped – a lot – but he was so far from good again that he wondered how long it would be before he was capable of trying to cross back home through the shadow realm. After the Athena Parthenos, it had taken him months of recuperation to travel fully safely again. But that was prolonged traveling… he had almost dissolved into shadows then. And even then, he’d been able to walk around fairly easily as long as he didn’t try to use his abilities. Now was different. His body felt so worn down. Like he had been the one to pick up the bus and carry it a mile himself. 

  
He leaned heavily against the edge of the sink and chewed his thumbnail. It wasn’t like traveling again would feel good, but he also didn’t want to let Dr. Caitlin start poking him with needles until he had a little more information. She was… nice. So far. But even Medusa was allegedly beautiful, he thought. And the lab was weird. And the way Barry and Cisco were whispering about him was weird. He didn’t like any of this. And he definitely didn’t know what would happen if you did a DNA analysis on a halfblood. 

  
And besides all of this lab stuff, there was another problem with chilling out longer. The longer he spent here, the longer he lost ground on tracking down the monster that had tagged along with him. Nico poked a finger at his stitches and winced, remembering the razor sharp claws of the chimera raking across his skin. He’d panicked and tried to lose the monster that had sunk its fangs into his shoulder, calling all the force of the shadows he could muster to help him, and then they’d both been falling into the darkness of the shadow realm. But the creature hadn’t let go of him… Only dug in tighter. It was only when they’d fallen onto the pavement that he’d momentarily stunned the creature and been able to run off, bloodied and bruised. It had been far too close of a call. 

  
And then shortly after, he’d realized just how badly he’d messed up. Nothing was the same here as his world. Even the cities were different. He wasn’t even able to find an LA to try and get to the Underworld in. He’d thought if he rested for a few days, recovered as best he could without any ambrosia, he’d be able to travel back home, reproduce the power he’d discovered that day. But his first few attempts had been bitter failures. And then he saw the bridge starting to collapse… 

The urge to escape away from the situation and get back to Camp Halfblood had been overpowering until he saw those kids in trouble on the bridge. But now he knew that there were no other demigods here to clean up his mess. He needed to kill the chimera, then get home. He couldn’t just leave a monster in a realm without celestial bronze to prey on whoever it came across. And in order to do that, he needed to know exactly who he was dealing with. Maybe the Flash guy or whatever could help him track it down. He was willing to bet these people knew how to reach him with all their talk about metahumans or whatever. But he needed to know a bit more about them first. For all he knew they were going to dissect him once they confirmed he was a metahuman or whatever they called it here.   


He gritted his teeth. No other options. He closed his eyes and faded into the corner of the room.   


When he opened his eyes, he was in a tunnel underneath the main testing facility he had just been in. Steel grates lined the hallway, rolled down like garage doors over something that was hidden. Nico looked up and down it, but there was nothing but grates as far as the bend in the hallway went. He hesitated, and then approached one, looking for a way to roll it back up.   


As the grate rose, he gasped. There was a person behind it. _What the hell was this place?_  


As soon as they saw him, the man snarled and banged on the glass. “Let me out, boy,” he growled furiously. 

“Who are you? Why are you locked in here?” Nico demanded, searching the panel for a way to get him out. The man was taken aback by his immediate willingness to do something. 

“I was locked down here by the Flash and his two little mad scientists,” the man growled furiously. “Because they couldn’t contain my powers like they wanted.” A chill ran down Nico’s spine. He had almost let them draw his blood… was that what they wanted to do to him? 

Gods, no. “You’re a—you’re a metahuman? You have powers too?” Nico demanded, frantically tapping away on the keyboard to try and get the glass open. It wasn’t opening. There was some kind of password lock on it he didn’t have access to. 

“Oh, are you one of us too?” the man sneered. “Then trust me when I say you’re next, boy.” 

* * *

“Uh, guys?” Cisco said, interrupting the discussion as an alarm on his watch began to beep. “Someone’s trying to get the metas out of their cells. Three guesses as to who.” Cisco, Caitlin, and Barry rushed over to the monitoring computers to see what was happening. Nico had picked some random meta and was trying to figure out the passcode on the cell locks. “I mean, he’s not going to get it by guessing, there’s millions of permutations, but –” Before Cisco could finish his sentence, Barry took off running.   


And then he was suited up as the Flash, in the hallway with Nico, where the young man jerked his head up from the keypad and took two terrified steps back from him. “It’s okay, Nico,” Barry said, holding up his hands as he walked towards him slowly. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“No,” Nico said, “you’re just going to lock me up like them.” He gestured wildly around the room. “What is this place? Who are you? What do you want from me?”   


“I just want to help you,” Barry said, trying to soothe the wild look in the young man’s eyes. “Did you use your powers again to get down here? You’re going to die if you keep that up.” Maybe that was the wrong word to say. Nico took on a defiant glare.   


“I’m not afraid of death,” Nico said seriously. “And I can take a hell of a lot more than this before I drop dead. I will never be your lab rat.”   


“Nobody wants to do that to you,” Barry said. This was probably the worst possible situation. He didn’t understand why Nico didn’t recognize the meta he’d been trying to free as the guy who’d tried to blow up Central City a few weeks back. Even if Nico had been out of Central City, the criminal had made national news. How had he not even heard about it? The Flash didn’t come out of that looking like the bad guy. “Calm down and we can talk about this. You’re hurt badly – we just want you to recover.”  


For a moment, Nico’s face flickered with what looked like… hope? Barry was sure he was about to back down and let them explain everything. Then his face hardened. “Nobody is putting me in a cage ever again,” he said. Around him, the shadows seemed to grow longer. Overhead, a light flickered.   


“That’s not what—” Barry tried to say, but the words died on his lips as Nico… melted back into the darkness and dissolved into shadow. Then he was completely gone, vanished like a ghost. He had known that must have been what happened when Nico used his abilities, but knowing and seeing the power at work were two different things entirely. And now they had no idea where he could be. Did he have an unlimited range on his powers?  


Upstairs there were suddenly shouts. Barry’s blood ran cold. Maybe he hadn’t gone very far at all. Barry sped back up to his friends immediately, but they were alone, although Caitlin’s face was stricken. Barry looked around, but neither of them were hurt. The room was almost like he’d left it a minute ago. The only difference was… 

Cisco was able to speak first. “He took Joe,” he told him. A vice closed around Barry’s heart. No way. Not Joe. “He just popped out of the darkness, grabbed him from where he was sitting by the door, and vanished again. It was so fast…” Cisco slumped into a chair. “I’m so sorry, Barry.”  


_No_. Barry took off, speeding through the streets searching for any sign of Nico and Joe. Would Nico really hurt him? Joe had been nothing but kind to the lost boy. He traced a maze through the alleys of Central City, hunting for any hint of his adoptive father. But he knew it was pointless now. You couldn’t catch up with a ghost. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joe and Nico shadow travel out of StarLabs. Nico needs help.

Joe had just stepped back inside the StarLabs lobby after hanging up with the chief, but it was already apparent something had gone horribly wrong. Caitlin and Cisco were hunched over one of their computer screens, worry etched into their faces. “What’s going on now?” he asked, furrowing his brow and dropping into one of the seats near the door. “Everything okay? Where’s the kid?” And Barry, he realized, the second conspicuously absent person from the tense room. 

“Nico went rogue and started trying to let the metas out of their cells,” Caitlin said. “Barry’s trying to talk him down now, but he is looking seriously freaked out.”

Joe raised an eyebrow. “The most important kid in the place and you let him sneak away from you?” 

“He was in the bathroom!” Cisco said. “What were we supposed to do, handcuff him to the stall? He’s not a prisoner!” He frowned at Joe. “You’re looking pretty unbothered, Joe.” 

He shrugged in response. “I don’t think the kid is dangerous,” he said. “Just scared. Barry will calm him down.” 

A moment later, a hand seized his wrist. Joe jumped a bit, and stared up into the pale and terrified face of the kid, who certainly hadn’t been lurking in that shadowy corner a moment before. Where on earth had he come from? Joe went to pull his wrist out of Nico’s bony, tight grip, but the kid was stronger than he’d expected. His hand drifted toward his gun as Caitlin cried out for Barry. 

“Come on,” Nico said urgently, his head snapping toward Caitlin at her cry. And then a moment later, they were falling into nothing. 

The sensation was nothing like Joe had ever experienced before. It felt like he was hurtling toward the bottom of a very long drop, but there was no light, no walls, no nothing – just an infinite void, with wind rushing around his ears. He wasn’t proud of it, but he was terrified of the plunging horror they were falling into. He looked up at the kid, who was still clutching his wrist in an iron grip. Nico’s face was concentrated, frowning, and strained with effort. This was what he did to the kids on the bus, Joe realized. This was Nico’s metahuman mutation. Whatever… this was exactly, that was another question altogether. 

As soon as they’d entered the blackness, they plunged back into a dingy reality, tumbling over each other onto the ground. He felt the skeletal grip loosen around his wrist and he twisted away instantly, rolling back up to his feet as quickly as he could, drawing his gun. They were in what looked like an abandoned half built structure that was housing several squatters by the various debris around. The concrete frame had no glass in the open window which looked out over a familiar skyline. They hadn’t left Central City, although Joe recognized the area – they must have crossed the entire city to the south side in only a matter of seconds somehow. 

Nico groaned on the ground, and Joe trained his gun on him. “What the hell are you pulling, kid?” he snapped, instantly furious. “Trying to take a hostage or something? I’m not just going to sit quietly while you threaten the Flash or whatever. You seemed like a pretty bright kid, but this is one of the dumbest stunts I’ve seen a crook pull.” 

Then he realized Nico wasn’t exactly rushing to his feet to attack. The kid was still splayed out on the concrete, breathing heavily. His skin was taking on a blueish, gray tint that made him look vaguely corpselike. Another side effect of his meta abilities? Joe wondered. From the ground, Nico groaned, “You don’t understand.”

“Then feel free to explain it to me,” Joe said. “We’ve got plenty of time for a one on one chat now, it seems.” 

Nico shook his head. “I had to get us out of there,” he told Joe gravely. “They’re… crazy.” His eyelids drooped. “I’m sorry I didn’t get Barry out, I didn’t see him and that other guy was so fast, I didn’t have time to look for him. Once I rest… I swear I’ll make sure he’s okay.” He blinked back up at Joe, a serious stare in his eyes that sent a chill down his spine. 

Joe lowered his gun. “What are you talking about?” he demanded. “You’re trying to protect me? Kid, that’s not necessary. They’re good people at StarLabs. What happened that made you bug out of there?” 

Nico started working himself up against the wall so he was propped up to look at Joe. A pang of concern struck Joe seeing how badly injured the kid was from trying to help him in some misguided way. “I snuck out to see what they were hiding before I let them do all those tests on me,” he explained. “They’ve got all these meta-people locked up in their basement in these little glass cages. Not hard to put two and two together about what was going to happen if I didn’t get out. And I didn’t want you to get hurt, so I came to get you too.” He leaned forward and swayed a bit. “You’re a cop. You have to do something about this. Please,” he added. “Don’t let them lock me up.”

“They’re not going to lock you up, Nico,” Joe said, crouching down beside him and holstering his weapon completely. It was obvious the kid meant him no harm now, anyway. “I promise they won’t. StarLabs contracts with the city sometimes when a metahuman isn’t containable inside a normal prison. Every metahuman in those cells is either convicted in a court of law or awaiting trial and too dangerous to let out on bail. I can show you the paperwork next time you stop by my office.” 

Nico slumped back against the wall. “Don’t believe you,” he said. Joe cursed under his breath. He wasn’t wrong that there were people locked up, but Joe was surprised Nico hadn’t recognized any of them as the famous criminals splashing all over the news lately. Sure, it didn’t look good, but if you knew that the guy in a cage was capable of blowing up buildings – and, in fact, had done so just that month, you didn’t mind so much that he wasn’t getting out on bail. Then he realized the kid’s eyes were rolling back up in his head. 

“Nico?” Joe asked urgently. “I need you to stay awake. What’s happening?”

“I’m dying,” Nico told him bluntly, seeming to struggle back to consciousness after a moment. “Get my bag.” The kid raised a trembling finger toward a duffel bag in the corner, which was when Joe realized that the kid was living here, in the dingy abandoned building. It wasn’t a random place he’d escaped to – it was his hideout. Putting aside the horror at that realization, he hurried to retrieve the small duffel for him. “Outer pocket,” Nico added, and Joe opened a zipper to find a small plastic bag of what looked like a single cookie square. Nico grabbed it from him and popped it in his mouth, chewing and swallowing quickly. It was faint, but the grayish color seemed to drain a bit from his cheeks. Still, he didn’t start getting up. “I just need to rest now,” he said, nodding off. “Just wake me up in an hour or two.” 

Joe shook Nico roughly, but the kid seemed to be passing out. Whatever he had taken – drugs? Medicine? – it didn’t seem to be doing anything to keep him from losing consciousness. “You need to stay awake, Nico,” he ordered sharply, but the kid was beyond listening. Frantically, he dug out his phone and dialed Barry immediately. His adopted son picked up on the first ring. 

“Joe, what happened? Where are you? Stay on the line, Cisco can trace your call,” Barry demanded frantically. “Did he hurt you?”

“I’m fine,” Joe told him, “the kid was just scared and trying to protect me. He thought StarLabs was some kind of mad scientist lab thing. But he’s hurt, bad. He overdid it with his powers to get out of there. He lost consciousness. You need to get over here, _now_.” There was a frantic note in his voice. “He’s just a scared kid, Bar,” he added. 

“We’ve got your location,” Barry said immediately. “I’m on my way. Don’t worry, he’ll be okay.” 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nico is back in a hospital bed, this time at StarLabs. Team Flash puts together some puzzle pieces.

Barry watched the teen in his cot from behind the glass into the observation room. Once they had gotten back to StarLabs and Joe had explained what Nico had told him, he had to feel a little guilty about the misunderstanding that had now put their metahuman guest back into a state of unconsciousness and apparently, near death. Caitlin had him on an IV now and the steady beep of the heart rate monitor indicated that Nico was at the very least alive, and hopefully out of the woods, after a tense few hours where he’d spiked his vitals a few times and then crashed once. It was well into the night now, but he hadn’t wanted to go home until the kid woke up, and Joe clearly felt the same way. His adopted dad joined him at the glass, passing him a cup of coffee. “He’s going to be okay,” Joe told him. “The kid’s clearly a fighter.”

“He’s definitely _something_ ,” Barry said. “Caitlin says the initial blood analysis indicates his cells ARE repairing themselves already, though we don’t know exactly why. It seems like whatever he took was some kind of healing drug or something.”

“What else do those results say?” Joe asked.

Barry frowned. “Everything else will come in in the morning, but Caitlin said her initial guess was that using his ability involves decomposing at the cellular level, which would explain why he suffered so much physical damage if he didn’t have it under control. But that wouldn’t exactly explain why…”

“…why I’m fine and why all of those kids he did it to were fine,” Joe finished. “Maybe he takes the damage for others onto himself? Is something like that possible?”

“Could be,” Barry agreed. “But it doesn’t quite make sense. And he seems to do it in the darkness somehow, which doesn’t necessarily tie into that theory. Plus there’s what _you_ said about what the traveling felt like, which wouldn’t make align either. So…”

Joe chuckled. “So basically, you have nothing.” He shook his head.

Barry grinned. “Basically, yes.” As little info as they had, the puzzle of the metahuman was certainly a fun one. He liked working problems like this one.

“Well, now you have this,” Joe said, and dropped a slim duffel bag at his feet. Barry arched an eyebrow at him. “It’s the kid’s. I drove back over to pick it up once Caitlin got him stabilized. Seemed like he might want it when he woke up, anyway.” Barry picked it up. The bag was heavier than he’d expected given the size. He slid the zipper down into the main compartment. Both his eyebrows shot up. “Uh… Did you see this, Joe?”

“Yup,” Joe said.

* * *

A few minutes later in the lab, Cisco’s jaw hit the floor. “A SWORD?” he shouted, goggling at the black blade they’d laid out on the table. “Why does the sixteen year old metahuman have A SWORD?”

“Beats me,” Barry said, eying the wicked edge. Aside from renaissance fairs, he’d never really seen a legitimate _sword_ before, certainly not one that actually looked like it had been used in battle before. “Just scan it, will you? So we know if there’s any tech in it?”

Cisco grumbled in annoyance. “Can’t I just enjoy a cool sword for a little while?” he muttered, pulling out his scanners. “Any other cool things in the kid’s bag, or was it just, you know, only one medieval weapon for now?”

“Not really,” Barry said as Cisco worked. “I think some stolen clothes. Still had the tags on. No wallet, no ID, nothing else. Too bad, I think Caitlin really wanted to analyze that thing Joe said he ate that helped him recover.”

“Well, when he wakes up, hopefully he’s a bit more patient with the questions,” Cisco said, straightening up from the blade. “It’s not tech, by the way. Just your run of the mill mysterious black sword. Dime a dozen, really. Can’t _wait_ to hear what the deal is with that.”

Barry chuckled appreciatively. Just then, Caitlin appeared in the doorway to Cisco’s lab. “Mind coming to the med bay, Barry?” she asked. “We think he’s waking up.” Barry followed Caitlin down the hall as she explained, “Joe said he saw him open his eyes for a minute, but it seemed like he slipped back out of it. Still, it’s a good sign that it’s soon, and given his _last_ freak out, maybe it would be helpful if someone super fast was there to keep him under control.” He nodded, hoping it wasn’t going to come to anything like that. They approached the med bay. Caitlin’s prediction had been right – sure enough, Nico’s eyelids were fluttering blearily, although he hadn’t started to sit up yet.

Joe looked immensely relieved to see the two of them returning. “That’s good, right?” he demanded from Caitlin, waving a hand at Nico. She nodded. Just as she opened her mouth to reply, Nico started reaching for his IV to pull it out.

Barry shot forward with super speed and caught Nico’s hand. “Hang on, Nico,” he said. “Why don’t you let the doctor take care of that for you? You’ll hurt yourself.” Nico’s hand was much colder than he’d expected, and his olive skin had a waxy feeling to it. Almost corpselike, he thought, a comparison made clearer by the blueish pallor the boy’s skin had taken on.

Nico stared at him with black eyes that seemed slightly foggier than before. “Jason?” he asked blearily. “How are you here?”

Barry looked to Caitlin, confused. She said quickly, “It’s likely a combination of the pain meds and some disorientation from being unconscious. The confusion should go away as he wakes up.”

He turned back to Nico, whose eyes were fluttering shut again. “No, Nico, it’s me, Barry. Remember? We met this morning. You hurt yourself pretty badly. You need to try and stay awake.”

“There’s a monster on the loose,” Nico muttered. “You have to do something before someone gets hurt. We can’t leave. Did you bring Hazel?” Abruptly, he started mumbling in another language that sounded like it might be Italian before his eyes shut. Nico’s hand went limp in Barry’s hand. 

“A monster? What does that mean?” Barry asked.

“It could be anything,” Caitlin said. “When people are that disoriented, they have a hard time telling what’s real. It could be a dream, it could be a memory from ten years ago…”

“Or it could be a monster?” Joe asked.

Caitlin hesitated. “Well, yes. Look, you'll have to ask him what it means, I'm just the doctor.”

It was another twenty minutes before Nico woke up again, this time seeming much more lucid than before. “What happened?” he rasped, startling Barry and Joe out of a conversation they’d been having about what to have for dinner that night.

Joe leaned over toward Nico from his seat. “You lost consciousness,” he told him. “I had to help you out somehow. So I brought you back here."

“You’re not in any kind of danger from us, Nico,” Barry added. “We really do just want to help you. Nobody is going to do anything you don’t want.” Nico didn’t reply, but his eyes started darting around the room as if he was checking for exits. His heart rate monitor started beeping faster. “Take it easy,” Barry said. “You’re safe, okay? Look, let me show you something. You remember the guy from earlier today you saw? I can explain to you why he was locked up.”

Nico made no response, just turned his head and watched him with glittering black eyes.

Barry took that as a positive sign -- at least he wasn't trying to run away again -- and turned on the display screen with a touch of the remote on the wall behind Nico, who flinched at the noise and snapped his head toward the wall. Nico stilled when he saw the face of the criminal in the holding cell. “Here’s the guy, right? And here’s a video of him blowing up a factory on the outskirts of town just a few weeks ago. You think a normal jail cell can hold a guy like that?”

Again, Nico was silent as he watched the video play.

“He’s going to be transferred to the Central City metahuman holding cells once some more space opens up there,” Barry added, “but we have the capacity here to hold additional criminals. You get it now? You’re not in any danger from us, Nico. We know you’re trying to help people, too.”

Nico frowned. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I didn’t know.” He glanced over at Joe, who gave him a reassuring smile.

“How?” Joe asked, not unkindly. “This guy was all over the news – both before and after his arrest. You live in a cave or something?”

The teenager became very interested in the sheet over him suddenly. “I guess I just didn’t hear about him.”

“Yeah, him, or anything else relating to metahumans,” Joe said. “You’d never heard of StarLabs, either, huh? You haven’t been in a cave, you’ve been on another planet.”

Suddenly it struck Barry like lightning. Of course, it was so obvious. Not knowing national news, being unidentifiable with facial recognition, no ID or other traceable information. He had barely even heard about the Flash, it seemed, considering how he called him ‘that Flash guy’ when asking about him. “Not another planet,” Barry said. “More like another universe.”

Nico’s head jerked up in surprise. He tried to cover for a moment. “Wh-I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lied poorly. It was the first obvious crack in the metahuman’s hard as a rock exterior Barry had seen so far, which told him he was right on the money.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” Barry said. “It makes so much sense. That’s why you’re a metahuman who isn’t from Central City. Because you’re not from this Earth.”

“You know about that kind of stuff? Other worlds and whatever?” Nico asked. He chewed on his lip for a moment as Barry nodded. “Then… can you help me get home?”


End file.
